Presidential election breaks records

Blue represents states which cast electorial votes for President Barack Obama. Red represent states which cast electorial votes for Mitt Romney. President Barack Obama was re-elected for another term, ending the third-closest presidential race in the nation’s history. During this election, at least three records were broken, and 120,266,179 Americans voted. HUNTER PARAMORE | Scroll Illustration

After 10 months of presidential campaigning, and despite Superstorm Sandy ravaging several Northeastern states, the country has re-elected its commander-in-chief and broken at least three records. President Barack Obama will remain the president for another four years.
“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward,” Obama said during his acceptance speech Nov. 7.
Obama celebrated his victory in Chicago the morning after the third-closest presidential race in history. Republican challenger Gov. Mitt Romney lost the electoral college vote 303 to 206. Obama won the popular vote by 3,205,691 votes.
With the running so close, the swing states became as crucial as ever. In late campaigning, both candidates made final pleas to citizens in the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The president visited Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa on his final campaigning day. He urged voters to stay with him and trust his economic policies.
“Ohio, I’m not ready to give up on the fight. I’ve got a whole lot of fight left in me and I hope you do too,” Obama told supporters in Columbus, Ohio.
Romney used his final day to visit Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. He promised to work with both parties in Congress and to help both sides work together.
“When I am elected, I will work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress. I will meet regularly with their leaders,” Romney said in a speech in Wisconsin. “I will endeavor to find those good men and women on both sides of the aisle who care more about the country than about the politics.”
Romney lost to Obama by 400,000 votes in Ohio, Colorado and Virginia combined. The Democratic Party has increased its control on the Senate and the GOP retained its majority in the House of Representatives.
The social network website Twitter reported 20 million poll-related tweets this election, making it the most-tweeted event in U.S. political history.
In this era of social networking, campaigns were using sites like Facebook and Twitter to beat the record 2008 voter turnout.Politico.com claimed that Romney could have taken the presidency had he managed to split the youth vote.
According to an analysis by the Center for Research and Information on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, Obama took the national vote of people ages 18 to 29 by 67 to 30 percent. Obama won at least 61 percent of the youth vote in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Facebook also set some records this election.
“The 2012 election received the highest score on the Facebook Talk Meter that we’ve measured this year among U.S. Users,” according to the “U.S. Politics on Facebook” website.
The Facebook Talk Meter monitors Facebook buzz around a specific event and its related terms. This particular event weighed in at a 9.27 on a 10-point scale.
Twitter confirmed that Obama’s tweet “Four more years,” with a picture of him and Michelle Obama embracing, has become the most retweeted tweet ever.